A milling cutter with such a device is known from German Published, Non-examined Patent Application DE-OS 33 14 419. For setting a given cutting depth, the cutter holder is displaced with respect to the foot plate in a first step and is fixed in a first, rough vertical position by means of the locking elements, which cooperate in a frictionally engaged manner with the guide columns. For fine adjustment, the threaded spindle, which is supported in a spindle guide fixedly connected with the cutting holder, is axially displaced by means of a setting wheel and with its front contact face is brought in contact with a stop element in the form of an adjustment screw of a turret bit stop. A floating attachment is disposed at the end of the threaded spindle, which grips the head of the adjustment screw from behind by means of a claw. Because of this it is possible to connect the cutter holder releasably with the foot plate. After the floating attachment has been swivelled into the locked position and the locking elements on the cutter holder have been undone, fine adjustment of the cutting depth is made possible by rotating the setting wheel. The amount of adjustment can be read off a scale, which is fixedly connected with the foot plate and guided on the cutter holder. The fine adjustment device formed in this way has a number of disadvantages. The distance between the foot plate and the cutter holder is particularly large at small cutting depths. In order to make a fine adjustment of the cutting depth, it is necessary either to screw out the adjustment screw of the bit stop by means of a screwdriver or the like far enough, so that it ends up in the area of the lower end of the spindle and in this way makes possible an engagement with the front face by turning of the setting wheel; or the setting wheel must be operated until the lower end of the spindle extends far enough from the cutter holder so that the connection with the adjustment screw becomes possible. In either case this entails a considerable expenditure of time and adjustment efforts.
A further disadvantage of the device for the fine adjustment of the cutting depth in accordance with German Published, Non-examined Patent Application DE-OS 33 14 419 consists in that a change of the vertical distance between the foot plate and the cutter holder can only be roughly read off the scale when the threaded spindle is operated, so that the adjustment of the cutting depth is very imprecise.